Anyway... Sometimes I need to get away from things. Seems like every 2 years my brain and soul starts crunching up and splattering.  I usually go to Waco. There is a VA psychiatric thing there.  There were no beds in Waco on this occasion.  I ended up at Austin Lakes Hospital.

First and foremost I have to say the food was superior to VA stuff.  And they let you have a plastic knife and fork.  The VA only gives you a spoon.

There is a lot I could write about but I am going to focus on a young lady that I met.  It is a sad story.

I can't remember her name but let us just say it was Stacy. That will become important later.

So I am in this psyche ward.  I meet Stacy first. She had arrived about the same I did.  She was bi-sexual and she was going to make sure everyone knew it. She told anyone who would listen that she was married to a woman and they had a young child.  I didn't ask questions. I didn't really want to know.

The odd thing is, is that her partner was dumping her and she didn't seem to realize it.

I kept walking around I started observing things and overhearing things. I heard Stacy  talking on the phone to her partner.  From what I gathered her partner didn't want her coming back home because she might be infected with covid from being in the psyche ward. Stacy's partner wanted her to get a motel room for 2 weeks.   That makes a little bit of sense.

But it is also a good way to dump somebody.  Maybe Stacy couldn't see it but I did.

I was walking around and I saw this case worker open the door to Stacy's room and ask to see Tracy.  Stacy jumped up and out.  She thought the case worker had said Stacy instead of Tracy.  I feel like I should have said something.

I keep walking around and I see this case worker telling Stacy what is up.  All this time this case worker is telling her what Tracy's deal was.  I really should have said something

Then I see and overhear Stacy talking on the phone to her partner and telling her the wrong deal. Then when Stacy found out that the case worker was wrong and had confused her with Tracy it made Stacy look crazy in the eyes of her partner. And as I said... it was very obvious to me that her partner was trying to get rid of her.  Stacy started freaking out and yelling "somebody call my partner and tell her what is going on !".

I think Stacy figured it out in the end. She was getting dumped. She started yelling like "I AM STABLE! Discharge me from this germ fest! ".  

It was so funny. You had to be there.

And Stacy was just a little disgusting bitch.  She was overweight and not attractive at all. But she thought she was attractive. She thought she was better than everyone else.  She told me she had been there before many years ago.  In a psyche ward everyone is equal.  

I know it sounds crazy that I am so nonchalant about being in a psyche ward but it isn't that big of a deal.  My friends, my family ... they can't help me.  When I need help I turn to mental health services.  And it works for me.

I have met some very interesting people in psyche wards.  Psyche wards are not what you think they are.  People have problems and they are there to get help.  If you are dangerous, you will go to jail until you get  right enough in the head to try again.

This trip was really interesting. I met a guy suffering from dementia.  He was really cool but yeah, he was suffering from dementia. I also met a fellow soldier who served at Ft Riley KS and I had served there too so we had much to talk about.

Anyway I got discharged and left Stacy there to deal with her shit as she flew over Austin Lakes Hospital.

There is a lot more to this experience but I present this one facet.

We got gooks in the wire! FIRE THE FPF! FIRE THE FPF!

"Thunder 36? this is ace 14. uuh. break break"

"thunder 36 . this is ace 14. uhh. Target number uhh. 1059. . I say again. Target number one zero five niner. Danger close! Danger close! over"

" I need a splash on this guys. I need a splash guys. over"

"please give me a splash on this one guys. over"

woosh woosh woosh BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

====Ace 14 this is Thunder 36. uuhh. sorry about not giving a splash. The gun bunnies didn't give it. over

====Ace 14 this is Thunder 36. requesting BDA. over

====Ace 14 this is Thunder 36. requesting BDA. over

====Ace 14 this is Thunder 36. please tell me you are still there. over

====Ace 14 this is Thunder 36. do you copy? over

====Ace 14 this is Thunder 36. do you copy? over

====Any station this net. do you copy? over

over.

verse 1
I met you on the east side at McCabes
we were there for different reasons
but the place made us the same
years later again we met that day
If I knew then what I know now
I would have walked away.

Chorus
Jason the junkie
Die your junkie death.
I got no pity left for you
I got nothing left
I was a fool to be nice to you
and a fool to let you in
only person dumber than a junkie
is that  junkie's foolish  friends

Verse 2
If you get dope sick you need to quit.
don't rob your mother or some other bullshit
Your hustle ain't working  here no more
better never ever  be knockin on my door.
Ain't no junkie with a heart of gold
a junkie is a junkie with a junkie soul

Chorus
Jason the junkie
Die your junkie death.
I got no pity left for you
I got nothing left
I was a fool to be nice to you
and a fool to let you in
only person dumber than a junkie
is that junkie's foolish friends

Verse 3
No narcan man. I got nothing for you
I wanna see you in a gutter  with your lips turnin blue
there is no salvation or hope as well
no 12 steps dude , go straight to hell
you can't lie and your things  fall apart
you are just a fuckin junkie with fucking junkie heart.

Time for me to tell you the motivations behind me moving to California circa 1995.  It is time for me to confess some things. I think you will see that I was lucky and despite my stupidity, I  ended up where I needed to be.

I have a B.S in Computer Science and I started working on that degree at San Jose State and finished it up at Texas State San Marcos.  It really dates me now to say this  but I arrived in Silicon Valley at the height of the Dot Com boom of the 90s. I got into the internet thing. I am a computer guy. Or I was.  Not sure who I am now.

But it was not my original plan to pursue a comp sci related degree.  I had much loftier ambitions when I first checked into Hotel California.  Ready for this?

I wanted to get a Phd in  fucking Cosmology. You know: "the science of the origin and development of the universe." Oh. but there is more.

I had spent very little time  in San Jose before I moved there. I had a PC but the internet in Hawaii and Kansas ( my duty stations in the Army ) was hard to get at the time.  I had only read about the internet. My plan was Cosmology not computers.

I was driving around San Jose when I first arrived and I noticed something.  I thought to myself,   "There sure is  a lot of computer and internet shit going on around here. It is in a valley too. This  place is like Silicon Valley".   Then I felt like an idiot. I had moved to Silicon Valley and didn't even realize it.  That stupid thing turned out to be best stupid thing ever.

Here is the deal. I moved to California because I was looking for people like me.  I have always been a little bit different. I won't go into here but I had a certain interest. I believed that  if I found  others with that same interest that they would be different like me. I never found those people but I know I  was close. I might have found them actually. I probably did find them.  But just like so many other things in my life, I  let it slip through my fucking fingers.  I will explain in future writings.

Yet another reason that I moved to California is because I wanted adventure. When I joined the Army, my life really took off.  I was going places,  seeing cool things and doing interesting stuff.   I was having sex on a semi-regular basis. That was different. I was on one big adventure. I felt that if I got out of the Army and simply  went back to Texas that this great adventure of mine  would be over.  When I finally moved back to Texas in 2001, I realized , sadly, that I was 100% correct. The Nissan carried my body home.  Adventures do end.

I started going to the San Jose City College.  Don't attend junior colleges if you are pursuing a university degree.  Go to the university . I didn't know any better. Still, it was an interesting experience. I attended the city college for 2 years. I had a  3.8 gpa as I transitioned into San Jose State. I completed my first semester at a real university and was promptly put on academic probation. The junior college did not prepare me for  a real university. Had I started as a freshmen at San Jose State ,   I believe that I could have  worked up to the challenge.  Also, after just 2 years ,I had lost quite a bit of motivation concerning school.  I soldiered on though.

It became obvious to me  that I was not going to get a Phd in jack shit anything.   I decided that I wanted to be web developer.  My true calling for a career involves computers and the internet. I had to go somewhere by mistake to figure that out. It was a strange way to get to  San Jose. I learned about what I really wanted and ended up being right where I needed to be.

It was 1994 I think. I reenlisted in the Army for 2 reasons. One is that I knew I would make sergeant and I wanted that. The second reason is because I wanted to stay in Hawaii.

The retainment guys in the Army are the same as recruiters. They could not guarantee me that I could stay in Hawaii unless I reenlisted for a longer time. I was not willing to do that. The guys  told me that I could put in a request to stay in Hawaii and I would most likely stay because the Army doesn't like paperwork and it saves money  to  have me stay put in Hawaii. That made sense to me.

Two months later, I found myself in Ft Riley Kansas and with a hatred of recruiters and a wardrobe of Aloha attire that wasn't working for me anymore.

Kansas was a shit duty station. There was nothing to do. Kansas is where I realized I could start drinking at 7am. The Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 happened all around me.  It was crazy. I was close to that. Too close. That is another story. Timothy McVeigh had been a soldier at Ft Riley and rented that cursed  van in Junction City Kansas.  Junction City is the little town right outside the gates of Ft Riley. I celebrated when they put McVeigh to death. Burn in hell Tim.  Nothing could ever justify what you did.

My plan to move to California was in motion. I realized that San Francisco would not be a good place to move to and the schools there were not what I wanted. I looked at the map and San Jose seemed like the place.  I was stupid and thought a junior college was the way to go for the first two years but that is wrong. San Jose State was a school I knew I could get into. Do you know the way to San Jose?

I had never lived in California and that was a problem because I would have to pay out of state tuition.  That would be a deal breaker.  In  Hawaii, I found a loophole. First I went to California and got a mail box. The place could forward mail to me in Kansas.  My mail box place was on Haight street. It was called "Haight Mail". Clever.

Then I simply filled out some paperwork and started paying state taxes for California. A place I had never lived before. I was now a California resident. Problem solved.

I bought a brand new 1994 Nissan Pickup. I would have to go California at least 4 times before I got out the Army.  I had to get school in order. I had to find a place to live. Finding a place to live was a problem that  I could not solve. It was a problem the entire time I lived in San Jose. From what I understand . it is nightmare to get any kind of housing in San Jose nowadays.

Kansas to California is a strange road. "Next Services 94 Miles" is the sign I remember. I remember stretches of road where I could see for miles and miles. It was kind of scary. You did not want to break down.

There is a small town in Nevada called Austin. It is on the road from Kansas to California.  It boasted the Stokes Castle. Apparently Austin, NV had been some silver boom town back in the old west days and some dude made a castle of sorts.   It was once a stop for the Pony Express. It also is the home of the 20  fucking dollar omelette.

I had been driving all night and when the sun came up I was in Austin , Nevada. I stopped at a diner kind of place. I ordered an omelette. That omelette was nothing to write home about.  There was a woman working the counter and she was gossiping with  a woman who I assume was another local.

She had to announce how much that omelette was. She said "That will be $19.85" . I managed to not show how surprised I was. It was like she was daring me to bitch about the price.  That is a tourist trap I guess. I never stopped in Austin, Nevada  again.

It was a lonely road and l listened to music. PJ Harvey.  Everclear, Hole. Liz Phair.  Hole and Everclear had songs about California. When I hear that music nowadays, I remember that long road.

I got short and one day it was over. You have to understand something about me. I was not supposed to be successful in the Army. I was not military material.   It was insane for me to join the Army.  The Army made me into military material though.  When I showed up in Hawaii, my first duty station, I was a soldier.  The old me was gone. Mostly.

I did final out processing the day before I was allowed to leave.   The people were civilians and they were calling me Mister Forbess instead of Sergeant Forbess and that seemed so strange.

A guy handed me some paperwork and said "Mister Forbess, your country thanks you for your service".

I asked "That's it?"

He replied,  "That's it".

I started walking to the exit and I began to laugh. First quietly but by the time I hit the doors , I was laughing hysterically. It was a sense of extreme relief coupled with a feeling that I had really gotten away with something that I shouldn't have.

I still had 24 hours though. I could leave after midnight of the following day. I packed up my shit in my Nissan.  I said goodbye to some of my fellow soldiers. I stood at the CQ desk and when it hit midnight, I signed out.  I walked outside and threw my boots over the telephone lines or whatever kind of  lines they were.  That is a tradition of sorts.

I got into that Nissan and I went  to California.

It was 1992. I was in the Army and stationed in Hawaii. Schofield Barracks on Oahu specifically.  I had gone on emergency leave to Texas because my mother had a heart attack.  I didn't really get to see her because she was in ICU.  There was nothing I could do and my home was the Army and I wanted to go home.

On the way back I made sure I had a 3 day layover in San Francisco. It was my plan at the time to leave the Army and live in San Francisco.

I have to say something about San Francisco . There are some dumbass people in the world  who think San Francisco  is just gay people.  "Oh you want to live to in San Francisco? I didn't know you were gay".  Shit Texans say.  It was a beautiful city when I visited.  Yeah, there were gay people.  They did their own thing. Not an issue.

This visit to San Francisco was before I knew I could stay for $15 a night at The Presidio as a service member. That is another story.

I managed to get  a room at a shitty hostel. The hostel was so shitty they didn't care about who stayed there. It damn sure wasn't backpackers from Europe.  I shared a room with a guy who had a massive scar on his chest from the time someone tried to kill him with a knife.  He went to some body mod/piercing place and got 7 ring piercings all along that massive scar. It was disgusting.  It was like cynobyte thing. I didn't hang out at the hostel.

People were friendly. Guys would buy me drinks sometimes. I noticed that every time that happened the bar question had a rainbow flag in the window.  Yeah. I figured  out what that flag meant. I was from  Brownwood Texas.  I didn't know anything.

I always ended up on Haight Street and it was so awesome to be the corner of Haight and Ashbury. What did I do there? I drank. The second day there , I got really drunk.  Night had fallen upon city and I stumbled  down Haight Street and that is where I met Tim and his buddy.

They were homeless and lived in Golden Gate Park which is right at the end of the street.  They sold me some LSD on a sugarcube. I had never seen it on a sugarcube. I asked them to give me the tour of street and wherever.  One of the guys, the older one was named Timothy Leary. I am not kidding. His parents had purposely done it.  His name was Timothy Leary Something.  Leary was his middle name.

We started walking and right away,  we meet two young ladies.  Tim and his buddy started doing their hustle and I was still quite drunk and I just grabbed one of girl's hands like I knew her. I don't remember how it happened exactly but  myself , two homeless guys and two runaway girls began strolling down Haight street and off into the darkness of Golden Gate Park.

I don't remember everything and some things I will not be sharing.  Remember I had eaten the sugarcube and I was in a magical world. We ended up at the kiddie park and climbed some kiddie park structure which had slides and such.

The sugarcube was peaking at that point and suddenly I was no longer drunk.  I became a little concerned about my choice of company and where I was at.  I made sure I had my wallet  and my plane ticket. I wasn't going to leave that at the hostel. Even though I was tripping I was very coherent. The two homeless guys started laughing at me. Tim said "Oh I knew this was going to happen. You were drunk when we met you".   The two girls were tripping as well but very quiet.  

I started talking  to the girl that I had my arm around.  Her name was Amber Broom. I remember that for some reason.  She wasn't  technically a runaway because she was 18. Her 15 year old friend, however, was a real deal runaway. She and the younger homeless guy went off somewhere for some privacy. Tim ditched me and Amber.

Amber and I were alone in Golden Gate Park.  We talked about having sex but I didn't have condoms and  what?  Were we going to do it on the fucking ground? Well, I was willing to do it on the ground. Amber was not too keen on that idea. It wasn't happening.

The sun came up and I bought Amber a pancakc breakfast  from McDonalds.  I tried to convince Amber to call someone and go home. Amber was looking pretty lost.  I got her some change so she could call someone.  The call did not seem to change her situation.

"What are you going to do now? Where are you going? ",  Amber asked me.

"I am going to the airport and back to Hawaii and the Army. I am going back to my real life". I replied.

She seemed so sad and lost but there was nothing else I could do for her.   Amber's  young friend appeared out of nowhere and seemed none the worse for wear. She was smiling.  Amber had her sidekick back.  I gave Amber a hug, a twenty dollar bill and wished her well.

I went to the airport and flew away. Aloha Amber.   I hope you made it home.

As humans we want to part of something bigger than ourselves.

It gives us direction. It calls to us.

We try to answer that call as best we can.

We don't always know what calls to us. We don't always know how to answer. We don't always know where it calls us from.

It is trying to call us home. Like a mother calling out to her children playing outside right before it starts to rain. She wants to keep them safe and dry.

Everybody wants to go home. Everyone wants that love and the sense of belonging that is found there. They  want to be part of something bigger than themselves like a family, whether of blood or otherwise, or a community whether it be of circumstance or of soul.

Some people find that home. Some people make their own home. Some travel around the world to find it. Some will find that they were exactly where they always needed to be. For them, the call has been answered.

Others,  who are less fortunate, lose their bearings.  They  can't tell which direction  ANY sound is coming from. The call that they hear  echos and bounces off of unseen canyon walls.

When the rain does start falling , it will drown out the sound of their  mother's voice. Then they will be truly lost. Lost children crying in the rain.

Perhaps Echo herself will awaken when she hears their cries.  After all,  they did follow an echo as if it was a mother's voice.  Echo will then take them unto herself as if they were her own.

They will become the children of Echo.